


The Déjà Fait Fate Destabilizer

by amathela



Category: The Middleman (TV)
Genre: Apocalypse, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-24
Updated: 2010-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-07 12:37:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amathela/pseuds/amathela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who starts a countdown at eleven?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Déjà Fait Fate Destabilizer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ryfkah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryfkah/gifts).



Middleman HQ.  
Eleven seconds before the world ends.

*

"Eleven," Ida deadpans, and Wendy stops in her tracks.

"Seriously?" she asks. "Who starts a countdown at eleven?"

Ida gives her a long, level look. "Do you have a problem with the way I do my job? Because if that's what you want to talk about right now -"

"No," Wendy says quickly. The last thing she wants to do with her last eleven seconds on Earth is to get into a verbal sparring match with a caustic robot receptionist. "Carry on."

"I'm so glad I have your permission," Ida says. "Ten."

That's more like it.

Wendy half-dials Lacey's number, and then stops. The world isn't going to end. She doesn't need to say her last goodbyes.

"Nine," Ida says.

Wendy turns on her. "Do you have to do that out loud?"

"Eight," Ida says happily.

The Middleman should be here by now.

Maybe she should call Lacey, just in case.

"Seven."

"Dubby," the Middleman says, and Wendy pockets her phone almost guiltily.

"Cutting it a little fine, aren't you?" she asks.

He looks confused. "This wasn't easy to find, you know. I had to -"

"Six."

"Whatever," Wendy says, reaching for the device. This isn't the time for detailed recaps of thrilling heroics, however thrilling and heroic they might have been. "I just press the big red button, right?"

"Right," the Middleman says. "If you want to speed up our -"

"Five."

"- Remaining seconds."

"Oh," Wendy says. "No, I don't want to do that."

"No," he agrees. "What you want to do is press the -"

"Four."

"- Tiny green button right here."

"What green button?" she asks, turning the device over in her hands. "Oh, you mean this green button? It's tiny."

"Precisely," the Middleman says. "Are you ready?"

"Three."

"I still don't understand why you can't do it," she says.

The Middleman looks resigned. "If this doesn't work -"

"It will."

It has to, she thinks.

"- Then I, as the Middleman, must go down with the world I have failed to save."

Typical male bravado. Or possibly extreme selflessness. Sometimes, it's difficult to tell the difference.

"Two."

"Dubby," he says.

"I'm going, I'm going," she says.

And pushes the button.

(The tiny green one. Not the big red one.)

*

The illegal sublet Wendy shares with another young, photogenic artist.  
Several hours before the world ends.

*

"Are you even listening to me?"

Wendy looks up at Lacey. Eyes wide, mouth set, hands clenched into sybolically violent fists. The same way she looked this morning.

"Of course I am," Wendy says. "You're talking about the devastation of our natural resources to provide efficient transportation to a minute section of the Earth's population."

She hopes.

"Exactly!" Lacey says. "While these corporations pander to the rich, everyone else -"

And then she stops, glancing down at the device in Wendy's hand.

"What is that?" she asks. "Were you holding that a minute ago?"

"Are we talking relatively, or linearly?"

"What?"

"Never mind," Wendy says. "I have to get to work."

And save the world. No problem.

-

"Are you even listening to me?"

Okay, so it's a problem.

More specifically: she's the problem. Her and her big mouth and her failure to recognise each of the three hundred and eighty-six nearly identical hand signals of the alien they encountered ... today? Yesterday? A few hours in the future?

Well, whenever they met the thing, it was bad. A wrong word, a handshake, and suddenly she's in the middle of an intergalactic political kerfuffle. And then the apocalypse.

"Of course I'm listening to you," she tells Lacey. "Devastation of natural resources, evil corporations, I got it. You know, we should really do something about that. Today."

"Really?" Lacey asks. "Because I already have a costume, and I can make one for you if you want to paint some signs - wait, aren't you supposed to be at work?"

Right. But Wendy is pretty sure that if she isn't at work, she can't insult some hotshot alien ambassador, and the world won't end.

Theoretically.

"You know what?" she says. "I think I'll take a sick day. This is important."

Lacey beams, and Wendy smiles back and clips the device to her belt. Just in case.

-

"Are you even listening to me?"

"Damn it," Wendy says. So much for her brilliant plan to do nothing. Some aliens are just way too trigger happy. "Sorry, Lacey, I've got to go to work."

*

Middleman HQ.  
Later that same day. Again.

*

"An intergalactic political kerfuffle," the Middleman says. "Interesting."

"All your fault," Ida says. "Interesting."

"No," Wendy says. "Not interesting. Urgent. We only have -"

She checks her watch. Okay, make that _really_ urgent.

"- forty-two minutes and seventeen seconds until we make first contact."

"Forty-two minutes," the Middleman says.

"And seventeen seconds. Approximately." She turns to Ida. "And it's not all my fault."

Not every time, anyway.

Ida snorts.

"Being that as it may," the Middleman says. "Dubby, you said I gave you the -"

"Fate destabilizer," she says. It only took her nine days to get the Middleman to tell her what the device is called.

"Fate destabilizer," he says. He looks worried, and she isn't sure if it's because she has the device, or because she knows its name. "I see. That must have taken me -"

"A really long time to find."

A really, _really_ long time.

"Yes. Well, this must be a matter of some concern."

No, it's just the end of the world. "You think?"

The Middleman gives her a stern look. "Just because it's the end of the world doesn't mean you have to be rude."

Right. "Sorry."

"On that note," he says, "have you tried not insulting our alien visitor?"

"Yes." Only a dozen times.

"And that didn't work?"

"No."

"Have you tried -"

"If there's a strategy, I've tried it," Wendy says. "I tried being nice. I tried gifts. I tried learning that ridiculously complex nonverbal language."

The Middleman looks impressed.

"A couple of gestures," she admits. "I tried staying home, staying in bed, warning you, not warning you, not wearing my uniform, wearing Lacey's stupid costume, being nice to Ida -"

Ida sneers.

"Nice-ish. I tried bringing in reinforcements, moving the meeting, skipping the meeting, sabotaging the meeting, attacking the aliens before they attacked us -"

That one didn't go so well.

"I'm telling you, I've tried everything."

The Middleman looks thoughtful. "Did you try apologising?"

Son of a dimension-hopping space piranha.

"Um," she says. "Maybe?"

Ida mutters something, and Wendy ignores her. Like it's her fault if her problem-solving skills start to wear a little thin after thirty-six do overs.

"Well," the Middleman says. "Let's try that, shall we?"

Wendy forces a smile. "Okay."

"And if that doesn't work, we'll just come up with something different."

"Fantastic."

"I imagine you'll be glad when all of this is over."

"Thrilled."

"And I will, of course, require you to return the fate destabilizer once this matter is resolved."

Damn.

Seventeen lectures on the potentially catastrophic consequences of altering one's timeline, six musings on all the ways in which time travel might work, and twenty-nine cautions to be extra extra super careful when using the device. She doesn't need another one. Even if there are a million things she'd like to use it for.

"Of course," she says.

Anyway, it's not like she doesn't know where he keeps it.

For potential future emergencies. Obviously.


End file.
